I'm curious about the editor, and would love to see a series of articles from Reverie on the cinematic capabilities of the editor, specifically for making machinama... Has there been any type of information about this released?

otomotopia

03-23-2010, 03:29 PM

There's been info released on the editor itself, not specifically cinematics.

This is the general suggestion thread for those Fantasy Friday features you are talking about: http://www.reverieworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1331

Wizaerd

03-24-2010, 03:20 PM

Ahhh, I didn;t know that thread existed... Sorry... And Thanx!!

Swift sword

03-24-2010, 04:17 PM

Actually, you couldn't possibly be expected to know about that thread. I'd hardly apologize-it's cool. And, in answer:
The editor will certainly have cinema capabilities. The devs said it's fairly simple to use, but they haven't gone into specifics. It's certainly helpful to know that the game is easily moddable and models can actually be replaced (raining cows!) with other models to create some very interesting effects, as mentioned in the paranthesis. One of the Fantasy Fridays gave use general editor info, although it's probably not exactly what you're looking for.

Alex Walz

03-24-2010, 06:19 PM

You'll have all the cinematography tools that were used to make the official cinematics. I haven't played around with cinematics much, but you can switch from the editor view controls to cine view controls which give you more flexibility and allow you to choose whatever angles for your shots. Then you just set a marker A (by using your mouse to find a good angle, and then pressing 'm,' at which point a marker will be set and a box will pop up asking for you to name it for further reference.) and move on to your next viewpoint where you set a marker B. Then, through scripting, you can easily link your two camera points to make a camera track as fast or as slow as you would like.

Then we have all the normal cinematic effects, such as: Fade In RGB, Fade Out RGB, and Black Out effects. We also have a camera track loop function which is useful for RPGs where you will give the player a quest but not know how long it will take the player to read and accept - the camera will just keep moving even if it takes hours rather than coming to a stop after you're done setting markers.

Here's a test cinematic provided by Andy if you would like to see the camera tracks and cinematic effects in use:

Should be able to understand most of that without any prior knowledge in Lua. :) The "Objects.CamX"s are the marker names which the track will go through and the numbers following them are the level of zoom experienced as the camera passes through each checkpoint. And the "-13" means the track will last for 13 seconds. For more control, you can split this into several tracks to make the trip from Cam1 to Cam2 last more time than from Cam 2 to Cam 3 to Cam 4, or whatever.

otomotopia

03-24-2010, 07:13 PM

:eek:

...

Thats freakin SICK!!! *Stamps seal of approval* Now THAT is another cool feature.

Negthareas

03-24-2010, 07:26 PM

Awesome! This kind of thing takes editing to a new level - I am just used to c=moretraditional, not so redical scenario editing.

Alex Walz

03-24-2010, 07:51 PM

Hah, this is all pretty standard, but I'm glad you like it. :)

wills370

03-25-2010, 07:18 AM

Looks good esecially if you combine it with your own scenario edditor. You could happily make a movie with the backgrounds you want and the characters doing what you want also...

Now im just waiting for the LOTR remake lol :P

Wizaerd

03-25-2010, 10:12 AM

Thanx for the camera bit... How about animating characters? Moving them along a certain path, playing animations, special effects (such as triggered spells) etc... But since you state you're creating the in-game cinematics with the editor, then it's all there, but how intuitive, how easy to use? Must someone be a rocket scientist to put together such a scene, or will even I be able to do it?

LiTos456

03-25-2010, 01:16 PM

Yes, as Alex said you'll be allowed to create cinematics while scripting events to happen, thus allowing you to create machinima.

I will be very likely creating detailed guides on how to use camera features, and animating units or other entities to fit with the video. You'll be able to find them on DoFSource.

Negthareas

03-25-2010, 02:14 PM

Now im just waiting for the LOTR remake lol :P

They won't make one. The movies were good, very good, but they did not create enough momentum to be continued [written about in additional books, etc.] like STAR wars.

There could be a remake, but I don't think there will be one by big companies because they would be afraid it would not sell.

A small company like Reverie, if it got the rights, could probably make a game to blow BFME I+II down the drain.

Alex Walz

03-25-2010, 03:13 PM

I think he was talking about a fan-made LOTR-based scenario for DOF, which I think there will be plenty of. If you look at other games with powerful editors like Age of Mythology, you'll find hundreds of fan-made Minas Tirith maps - most of which are horrible, but there are some classics. Hell, one of our new scripters is already working on one for DoF.

Thanx for the camera bit... How about animating characters? Moving them along a certain path, playing animations, special effects (such as triggered spells) etc... But since you state you're creating the in-game cinematics with the editor, then it's all there, but how intuitive, how easy to use? Must someone be a rocket scientist to put together such a scene, or will even I be able to do it?
If you can understand what the script I posted does, you'll have way there. :) You can do all of this with scripting. Like I've said, I've never gotten into Lua, but our scripters had no problem learning it. And, post-beta, you guys will have access to all the scripting references and tutorials that Andy Joslin wrote to train his new recruits. It's also worth mentioning that the editor is a separate application from DOF and you can minimize it as you please - if you want to go back and forth between the editor and a reference cheat sheet.

Negthareas

03-25-2010, 07:05 PM

Awesome - I look forward to learning Lua. Also, I know what you mean about scripting LOTR maps.

I imagine some pretty good ones, if not totally awesome, could be made because of the similarities.

Orcs have very similar units, and men do as well.

Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith - both could be done extremely well I think.